All those beautiful nightgowns my girlfriends got me for my shower. The mason jars, the ones my grandfather had individually labeled in his beautiful, cursive script that had once held his beloved pear jam, the ones I carefully packed in my suitcase and lugged all the way to the other side of the world with me. The sculpture I bought from a local artist in the village I moved to — It serves no purpose — you’d said. You made me put them in a plastic bag and take them to the curb all by myself as I heaved and cried and could not contain my tears. Something’s wrong with you, you said. Normal people don’t act this way.
Of all things, the wooden serving spoon and fork, the ones my daughters and I made the Caesar salad with together. You didn’t throw them away but said you did. Your diabolical game of hiding them and saying you’d thrown them away. You hid them and we looked for them. Here they are Mom! Everything’s ok now, my sweet daughter said. Don’t cry anymore. It was a stupid thing to cry about. It was the thing, of all the things, that made me release a torrent at our “hearing.” Tell us why you want to leave him, my lawyer coaxed me. We need to know, because, in my case, I had to prove I had a reason to go. The spoon was my reason. The spoon and the fucking fork were my goddamn reasons.
I threw out books, all my college poetry books, the anthologies, the French histories of literature. My children’s books. We have no place for those. I thought I was a hoarder. The line for me, the thing I could not agree to, were the Halloween and Christmas decorations. You can keep one box of them, he said. One for each holiday? I asked, as if I needed permission. No, one box for all.
In the end, the movers left the Christmas tree on the side of the road. My dear, precious daughter spotted it and made us stop the car. This time she cried. She knew it was the end. Poor tree, she grabbed and held it and brought it in with us. Our last drive as a family to our new “home” where he had proclaimed he would choose every item that entered it. I will get the final say, he said. As he chose it, there was no room for me.
The final thing I left behind, that you made me walk away from, were my daughters themselves. My friends say that it’s not true. I did not leave them, you took them away. But, I left. I got on a train and went away. I left four times, at least. It takes the average woman seven times. I guess I am colder, or maybe, just maybe, stronger than most.
